94 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



frequent and a handsome figure in the landscapes of 

 Salvator Rosa. 



It is a very long-lived tree, and there are several indi- 

 viduals remarkable for their large growth. The famous 

 Castagno di cento Cavalli on Mount Etna, as measured 

 by Mr. Brydone in 1770, is two hundred and four feet 

 in circumference : some indeed have doubted whether 

 this be really one tree, and Brydone himself thought 

 there might have been, from the appearance, five trees ; 

 but he was assured the space had formerly been filled 

 with solid timber, and there was certainly no bark on the 

 inside. One person professed to have dug the earth from 

 the roots, and ascertained by them that there was one 

 tree only. " I alleged," says the author, " that so ex- 

 traordinary an object must have been mentioned by many 

 of their writers : he told me that it had, and produced 

 several examples." He says that Massa, one of their 

 most esteemed authors, says of a Chestnut-tree, which 

 may probably be the tree in question, that the hollow of 

 it contained three hundred sheep, and thirty people on 

 horseback had often been in it at a time. Brydone 

 quotes the following lines on this subject from Bogolini : 



" Supremos inter montes monstrosior omni 

 Monstrosi foetum stipitis JEtna dedit, 

 Castaneam genuit, cujus modo concava cortex 

 Turraam equitum baud parvum continet, atque greges *." 



II Castagno del Galea measured seventy-six feet round, 

 at two feet from the ground. " It rises from one solid stem 

 to a considerable height, after which it branches out, and 

 is a much finer object than the other." He mentions 

 a third, of nearly the same size, called II Castagno del 



* Brydone's Tour through Sicily and Malta, letter 6. 



